If the Edmonton Oilers accomplished one thing this season… Well, let Patrick Maroon summarize:
“Everyone knows the Edmonton Oilers are no joke anymore,” said the straight-forward winger.
Truly, Oilers fans — and everyone inside the organization — would have settled for just that. Not being the butt of the joke anymore, or walking press boxes and sports bars from coast to coast and being met with that lingering, 10-year question that we all could never quite put our finger on:
“What the heck is going on in Edmonton?!?”
We can officially file the Decade of Darkness into the history books — its chapter entitled: “The Old Boys Club — A Cautionary Tale” — and we’ll open a new book in Edmonton, one where simply having a good November is no longer the barometer.
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“The bar’s gone higher now. The expectation’s gone up,” said fourth-line centre Mark Letestu, who stole Jordan Eberle’s job on the first power play unit this season and never relinquished it. “We’re not expecting to sneak into the playoffs — we’re going after Division titles. The Stanley Cup, it’s no longer the hope here. It’s the goal.”
“We’ve turned the page,” said head coach Todd McLellan, whose stated goal when he came here two seasons ago was to install a backbone in a team that was like a head-shy puppy, accepting and expectant that opponents would manhandle them nightly. “We had a good run, but this should become what the standard is, not an exceptional year. Make this type of year the standard, then push it from there.
“Our group was told,” McLellan said, “this has to become the norm.”
So, enough of the past. If these Oilers are like the 2007 Pittsburgh Penguins — a first round victim that lost in the 2008 Stanley Cup final, then won it all in ’09 — what has to happen to get from here to there?
Here are a few thoughts before we move on to covering Round 3:
• Milan Lucic: He has to do the full Pat Maroon, drop 15 pounds this summer, and come back quicker. Lucic brought a 2010 body in 2017. There’s a ton of player and leader here, but he turns 29 in June and has six seasons left on his contract. Lucic needs another step so he can be Lucic again. That requires getting there.
• Eberle: The trade market for a $6 million player whose game does not translate in the playoffs is almost nonexistent. “I got better all-around, defensively,” Eberle said, “but the one that really stings is, you take this long to get to the playoffs, and you don’t perform. That hurts.”
“Coming back, I’ll be better.”
The reality is, someone making $6 million — Eberle or Ryan Nugent-Hopkins — has to go to pay for re-signing Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid. Eberle is the guy, but GM Peter Chiarelli will be in tough moving that much salary and not taking the same number back.
• Benoit Pouliot: At least Eberle creates, with 20-25 goals annually. Pouliot makes $4 million per (two years left), and had a whopping 14 points this season. He went pointless in 13 playoff games. He’s a buy-out, and easily replaced by a Tyler Pitlick, Jujhar Khaira, etc.
• Nugent-Hopkins: RNH must figure out his fatal flaw — faceoffs — if he’s going to remain as part of this project beyond next season. He’s a career 43.3 per cent draw man. He’s checking better, his offensive numbers will likely still improve, but you can’t help as a 3C if you lose draws as consistently as RNH does. RNH should be on the ice as McLellan’s second centreman for key draws, not on the bench while Letestu serves that role.
• Jesse Puljujarvi: He just turned 19 on May 7, but Puljujarvi’s first year here was not ideal (12 goals in 39 AHL games). He’s the guy who replaces Eberle on right wing in Edmonton, a 6-foot-4, 205-pound sniper. Or so we’ve been told. If he pans out over the next two seasons, opponents are in trouble. If not…
The good news? Edmonton will answer similar roster questions this summer facing the 29 other NHL clubs, but the two people finding the answers — McLellan and GM Peter Chiarelli — are two of the best in the business.
The biggest step owner Daryl Katz made here in Edmonton was to stop hiring his former Oilers heroes, bring in Bob Nicholson as team President, and listen to Nicholson when he recommended Chiarelli. Chiarelli hired McLellan, and in two seasons those two have completely turned this organization around.
Off the ice, Rogers Place, the in-game experience, the physical impact on Edmonton’s skyline that The Ice District has had, the rekindled love affair with the fan base — all are major, positive steps taken by the organization.
They do things right here, again, and with McDavid and Draisaitl to build around, there is every opportunity — in fact, expectation — to win Stanley Cups again.
“After 10 years of being a bad hockey team and still having the fan base that we do, I think all the players really appreciate that,” said McDavid. “It has to be a different mindset. We’re not going to surprise any teams anymore.
“Teams know, we’re going to be a good hockey team.”
For some time to come, we would wager.
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